Palindrome Embroidery Masterpieces

Textile Art from the Indian Subcontinent.

Jaina Mishra | WovenSouls.com

Definition of Palindrome : a word, phrase or sequence that reads the same in reverse e.g. madam.

In drawings, working along one line of symmetry results in a palindromic drawing that looks the same when viewed from two sides. A circle has infinite lines of symmetry and looks the same upon rotation and we could call it ‘palindromic’ upon rotation.

Let us take extend this idea beyond drawings to a more complex art form – textile art.

Palindrome Embroidery

In textiles we have a front and a back.

In many simple plain weaves, the front and the back are the identical. As the complexity increases, the difference between the visual on the front and the visual on the back differs.

With embroidery, the back of the cloth that is meant to be unseen is untidy. The knots, the adjustments and the corrections can be seen on the back while the front face is perfect and tidy.

By JAINA MISHRA

But what if the stitches were worked in a way such that the front and the back are equally neat & perfect? That would be hard work but it is still imaginable. In this case we would expect that the visual at the back would look like a complement of the visual in the front.

Now let us extend our imagination one step further. What if both of the equally-perfect sides were to be identical? That is to say – what if both presented the same visual?

Just imagining that is difficult – so creating such a work would require high levels of technical expertise.

Could we name such work ‘Palindrome’ Embroidery?

Sounds accurate. But is it even possible to execute such an idea? The answer is ‘Yes’ and the surprise is that this affirmation comes from tribal belts and not from high-tech belts.

In the tribal belts of the North West Frontier of Indian Subcontinent and West India ‘Palindrome Embroidery’ was practiced in the past1 in which visually identical artworks were created on both sides of the cloth.

The creator’s mind had to imagine two visuals - one on the front and one on the back of the base cloth. The mind had to maneouver the needle-pulling thread to create two paths for the thread. The end result was that the two paths created on the opposite sides of the cloth, were identical to each other.

Managing this simulataneous creation of two drawings was complex enough, but the creators added in some more challenges: the use of multiple colors, the use of multiple directions and the use of complex stitches! Four variables – face of the cloth, color, direction and stitch design - were factored in to create these intellectual masterpieces of art!

I am dazzled. I am ‘wow’ed by the art and by the technique. And by the spatial intelligence of the genius-artists who created such work.

I am led to think that such complexity would need computer-aided design? high-tech machines to work out all the congruences. But just a glimpse into                                                                                                                1  Also  seen  in  Suzhou  embroidery  of  China  

By JAINA MISHRA

 

their origins reveals that the creators were all groups of gypsy or nomadic people, herders and gatherers by profession and commonly called tribal people.

Associated with these groups are words such as ‘backward’ – a word that implies a need for development.

But after seeing the art they have produced, that is a direct result of the sharpness of their mind’s eye, I wonder whether the people who call them ‘backward’ are misinformed or whether they were biased. Because there seems no reasonable metric under which the creators of such complex works could be seen as primitive.

On the contrary, I am reminded of the intellectual masters who play games of chess using not a board & physical pieces but mere verbal announcements of the notation of their moves.

To me, the complexity of such a game is comparable to that of creating palindrome textile artworks.

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A few examples of these pieces have survived their travels across space and time and are here today to charm and intrigue us, follow below:

Example 1: Palindrome Textile Artworks from Rajasthan:

By JAINA MISHRA

Example 2: Palindrome Textile Artworks from the Swat Valley:

By JAINA MISHRA

Example 3: Palindrome Textile Artworks from Punjab ‘Chope’

By JAINA MISHRA

Example 4: Palindrome Textile Artworks – Rumals from Chamba Valley

This type of blanket-stitch palindromes are also seen in Chamba Rumals of Himachal Pradesh. [No photo available]

By JAINA MISHRA

Common Origin?

The material, motifs & the stitches differ from each other. Yet the art concept is the same: Double Sided Palindrome Embroidery!

Is it surprising that the several cultures that created this art both come from the same broad area – North-West Indian Subcontinent?

By JAINA MISHRA

Is it surprising that the regions have always been homes to significant gypsy / nomadic / transient populations that traveled extensively within the region?

Did one learn from another? Did one bride bring this art in to her new home as a part of her intellectual dowry? Is this a result of migration of memes? Would we be able to find more people groups that practiced this art? Could these textiles act as migration markers and offer us evidence for deep-ancestry models? So many questions!

We might never feel like we have had our fill with viewing and understanding them. But for now, we can bask in the reflected glow of the souls of the brilliant tribal women-artists that have been captured forever in their mesmerizing works of Palindromic Embroidery Art.

Jaina Mishra | WOVENSOULS

April 2015

The pieces shown above are a part of the WovenSouls Collection showcased on wovensouls.com.